Lance Micklus was one of my favorite experiences of all the interviews and production run of GET LAMP. As the founder of Lance Micklus, Inc., he was right there at the start of the computer game revolution, one of the small mom-and-pop software houses that put out games for computers, in his case mostly the TRS-80. His company had employees, put out a number of products that were advertised in magazines of the time, and he even did work with Scott Adams and Adventure International. The main game I interviewed him about was Dog Star Adventure, but we also talked about the whole nature of software production back then, which I consider vital history.
Lance's company did not win the race, but like an awesome uncle and veteran of a wonderful life, Lance and his wife were generous, friendly, and c'est-la-vie about the whole thing. One thing, however, which he stresses and stresses here, is that the business was never all that profitable - those skyrocketing profits and millions of sales happened elsewhere, and he's not sitting on some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
It was a fantastic day and really showed me that there were some amazing stories to tell in GET LAMP's subject.